On Thursday the 7th, I took time off work for Jonah’s quarterly glaucoma doc appointment. Two Med Run Peeps drive him the 90 minutes up to Albany every time in the Anderson van; Jonah rides in the way way back, transported like His Majesty the Prince of Rhinebeck. I was very much looking forward to seeing him. It has been a long, long stretch of time since Boo has had an aggression. Since maybe October. I was hopeful he’d be glad to see me.
The stars were aligned this day. It was Laura Ingalls Wilder’s 152nd birthday, the Med Run Peeps were being their awesome, caring, kind selves, and Jonah was cooperative and happy. Silly and funny. Amazingly good.
Even more so when you consider that, unlike most visits to this doc, we had to wait a while; they wanted to take a scan of Jonah’s eyes before he saw his regular doctor. So we moved to an empty area of the waiting room, where geriatrics henceforth feared to tread – though those with vision watched us curiously and not unkindly. Jonah laughed his brash, loud laugh, pacing up and down the row of empty chairs. He hugged me and asked for more kiss? again and again.
My son is nearly a man. In a photo, he sometimes looks like a regular kid who is 16-going-on-17.
In person, though, there is no mistaking him for a “normal” teenager. His disability is as visible as if he were in a wheelchair, and to be honest I don’t mind that. In general, people are more compassionate now. When Jonah was very young – until he was 10 or 12, really, this was rarely the case.
Back then, to some, Andy and I were bad parents of an out-of-control kid. Once, an autism-denier went so far as to comment that I should give him Jonah for a week and he’d “straighten him out.” (I think his comment is still on that long-ago post). I remember how tempting it was to let him try… just to sit back and watch Boo kick his ass. If there is anything from those darkest days I miss, it’s the secret evil pleasure of watching Jonah attack a smug doctor who’d ignored my earnest warnings of severe aggression.
I talk about the pendulum swinging: aggressions and respite, hope and despair – our cyclic existence with no real patterns upon which to prepare for the next “season.”
Dare I pretend
to hope
to believe
Jonah’s aggressions have disappeared altogether?
Since autumn of 2010, I don’t think he’s ever gone this long without aggressing in some way against someone. He still gets squirrely, and he’ll swat or “flinch,” as the school calls it, motioning his hand in a warning. It’s the rattle of the snake, and yet nothing comes of it anymore. Now it is an end unto itself.
His awesome teacher Sophia wrote me yesterday that he had zero flinches this week. Not just zero aggressions. Zero flinches. My hero zero.
I’m proud of my son. I think he’s worked hard with the wonderful teachers & caregivers to learn how to manage his
feelings. Fred (Mr.) Rogers said he wanted to teach children that feelings are mention-able and manageable. It may well be one of the most important lessons a person can learn.
The rest of Sophia’s email to me reads: “This week we learned more about coins and bills, we celebrated the Chinese New Year, the Phases of the Moon, we did an experiment with Oreos to show the phases. Jonah enjoyed the part where he got to eat the cookies! We made a banana sushi roll today during Group OT and we also enjoyed a nice walk outside!”
I was so happy to hear about his week and know he spends time learning in ways that are fun and comfortable for him. When he first arrives at the classroom, he gets under a beanbag chair and blanket for a while. They recognize he needs to start his day this way and I appreciate that.
And so Jonah is well, and happy.
The rest of this post involves another disappearance – so if you’re here just for Jonah news, all done.
Every day when I get home and don’t have to go out again, it is my custom to take off my winter ‘office work boots’ I wear nearly every day and place them next to the radiator in my bedroom. So on that same day – Thursday, February 7, I came home from Jonah’s appointment and put the boots where I always put them.
That night I woke up at 1am mid-migraine, head pounding hard. I immediately got out of bed and took the med that stops my migraines about 50% of the time. Then I stumbled into the bathroom and, without turning on the terrible light which has become my nemesis, found a washcloth and ran very cold water over it. I returned to bed and nearly started crying in despair for what I knew was likely coming: the 24-36 hour marathon of puking, even the tiniest sip of water rejected; dehydration and retching causing my head pounding to worsen and the head pounding causing nausea, on and on in a nightmarish underworld where there is only pain and the desperate desire not to be in pain. In those first minutes lying down with the cool cloth, I prayed. I prayed the fervent, frantic prayer of one willing and ready to strike a deal with Divinity. Please, please, let this migraine subside and I’ll do anything. You can take anything from me. Just make it stop.
And lo, on this day in the year of our Lord twenty nineteen, the migraine stopped, blessedly subsiding into nothing – the pain retreating as if ordered to cease and desist. I eased into unconsciousness before I could pray or even think my thanks.
The next day I awoke…
…and, as part of my every day morning routine, got dressed, reached for my boots…
And this is what I saw:
One boot.
I looked under the bed. No boot. In the closet. No boot. After a while I didn’t have time to look anymore so I found my old pair from last year and wore them instead, telling myself I’ll find the other one later. After all, how hard can it be to find a knee-high boot? Yes, I lost 3 books of holiday stamps after New Year’s, but those are stamps. This is a freaking boot.
Only later that day did I realize I’d promised in my prayer the night before to give anything for the migraine to go away.
The only conclusion I can come to is God took my boot.
It is now the next day, Saturday, and my mother’s birthday (Happy Birthday Grandma, says Boo). I have conducted a thorough search for the missing boot. I have looked in ridiculous areas and places where no boot could ever hide. As of this writing I have no explanation, and I’m trying not to think about it all too much, lest it freak me out completely.
If after my death I am deemed so wonderful as to be considered for sainthood, could this missing boot count as my required miracle?
The world may never know…but I’ll keep you posted if I find it.
The Never Normal 